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I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions and our beginning of a look
at Mark chapter 9. We're going to look at verses 1 to 8 today, our first day of
five days of looking at this great chapter. Mark chapter 9 and 10 are incredible
chapters in this book because they lead us up to the last week of Jesus' life.

Jesus knew where He was going to be in just a short time. He was going to be on
the cross and then He was going to be resurrected. And so He knew that He had
just a short time left with His disciples and He uses these last few weeks
together with His disciples to teach them what was most important.

Again, you see these last few weeks in these chapters, Mark 9 and 10, you see
the importance of teaching just a few. Jesus is increasingly spending time with
His disciples, making sure that they have the message so that they can pass it
on after He has left. There are a lot of activities that happen in these two
chapters, but Jesus uses every one of them as an opportunity to teach the
disciples.

And what is it that He taught them during these weeks together before His
experience with the cross and the resurrection? He taught them what was most
important. Each of these truths that Jesus is going to teach that we're going to
look at this week, they are backed with a sense of urgency.

This is what you need to remember. It's almost as if Jesus is saying, "This is
what you have to not forget. This is what is of utmost importance.

" Listen to what the disciples learned in Mark chapter 9 verses 1 to verse 8.
Before they see the kingdom of God come with power. After six days, Jesus took
Peter, James, and John with Him and led them up a high mountain where they were
all alone.

There He was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzlingly white,
whiter than anyone in this world could bleach them. And there appeared before
them Elijah and Moses who were talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three
shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. " He did not know what
to say.

They were so frightened. And then a cloud appeared and enveloped them and a
voice came from the cloud, "This is My Son whom I love. Listen to Him.

" Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except
Jesus. These are amazing verses. A lot of us, we read verse 1, chapter 9 verse
1, and we wonder what it is about.

Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, there are some standing here who will not
taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power. " And we wonder,
is He talking about His second coming? I mean, that's been at least 2,000 years
now.

So we know that those who heard this died. So what is He talking about? Is Jesus
talking about the beginning of the church?

Is that what He means here? Here's what He most likely means. As this verse
immediately precedes what happens at the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew and
in Mark and in Luke, all three of those gospels, Jesus is talking about the
moment of the Mount of Transfiguration.

What happens when they see the power of Jesus Christ transfigured and Him
standing with Moses and Elijah? And all this happens so that the disciples can
learn something. There is something that Jesus wants them to not forget.

There's something He wants us to not miss in what happened there. It's this
teaching of the transfiguration. What happens in this transfiguration?

Jesus is somehow transfigured in a way that when they see Him, He is so white.
His clothes are so white. They see nothing on earth could have made them that
clean.

And then all of a sudden, Elijah and Moses are standing with Him. What's
happening here? Well, the first thing that's happening is Jesus is getting some
encouragement.

He's going to the cross soon. So He's getting the encouragement of these
servants of God, Elijah and Moses. There is a fellowship moment that's happening
here, but there's something much deeper than that.

There's a teaching that's happening here. This transfiguration, this event that
happened on this mountain that the disciples would never forget, it is teaching
them about who the real teacher is. Now, first, just notice that Jesus took with
Him for this teaching experience Peter and James and John.

All twelve of the disciples were not with Him. And some people ask, "Was He
playing favorites here? " No, He was not.

He was effectively teaching. All effective teachers know that there are times
when you have to get the group smaller to really get the point across. And in
this case, He needed to get the group smaller to get the point across, and He
needed to teach these who, in many ways, Peter and James and John were an inner
circle of the disciples.

In the end, Peter's going to end up leading this band of disciples. And so He
knew that He had to teach them in specific ways. James is going to become the
first martyr for the church.

John is going to live the longest of all these disciples to pass the word along.
So Jesus taught them especially. And here He's teaching them about who the real
teacher is.

It's very significant that Jesus is standing with Moses and Elijah. Moses
represents the law in the Old Testament. He wrote the law in the Old Testament.

And God is saying to the disciples, "Jesus is more important than Moses and the
law. " In fact, in Matthew chapter 5 verse 12, Jesus tells us that He came to
fulfill the law. He didn't cast away the law.

He fulfilled it, and He fulfills it by writing it on our hearts. Ezekiel 36
talks about that. Jesus fulfills the law by writing it on our hearts.

It's not something that's written just on paper anymore. God writes who He is
and His commands in our lives and our ability, our power to obey those commands
into our very hearts. He does it by the power of His Spirit.

And so we move from empty rules to an eternal relationship. And Jesus is
teaching here. God is teaching these disciples, "Jesus is more important than
the law.

" All their lives they had been taught, "Nothing is more important than the law.
" Jesus is more important because His teaching is going to last. He's more
important not only than the law, but He's also more important than the prophets.

Elijah represents the prophets. He is one of the greatest examples of an Old
Testament prophet. And Jesus not only fulfilled the teaching of the law, He also
fulfilled the teaching of the prophets.

You can read that in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17. These prophets in the Old
Testament, if you've ever read the prophets like Elijah or Isaiah or Jeremiah,
you realize that they preached about judgment, but they always ended with a
message of hope. And Jesus fulfilled the overall teachings of these prophets by
bringing that hope.

He brought it into the world. Jesus fulfilled also many of the specific
prophecies that they gave about Himself, a Messiah who would come, a suffering
servant, Isaiah called Him. He came into this world to make a difference.

So what is God teaching here? He's teaching that there's no teacher greater than
Jesus. Even the greatest teachers, the heroes of faith for these disciples, He
puts Moses in front of them and Elijah in front of them and says, "No one is
more important.

No one is more important. " And God is going to make that lesson very clear in
what happens next. Peter comes and He says, "Let's build three-tenths.

" And I love in verse 6, we get a commentary on why Peter said this. The Bible
says he did not know what to say. Peter was one of those guys, I love the way
somebody said this, Peter had nothing to say and he said it.

He did this very often. When he had nothing to say, he felt embarrassed, he felt
like I got to fill the space in between the quietness here and so something
popped out of his mouth. And in this case it was, "Let's build three shelters.

Let's make Moses and Elijah and Jesus equally important. Let's stay up in this
mountain instead of going back down from the mountain to meet people's needs. "
There's many times in all of our lives when we can relate to Peter.

We don't know what to say. We can't stand the silence and so we say something
that later we just kick ourselves that we said. This is a reminder to me, this
experience in the life of Peter, that when I'm about to say something because I
don't know what else to say, the better choice is just not to say anything, to
do what God says to do here.

Peter says the wrong thing and then a cloud appears, it envelops them and a
voice comes from the cloud that says, "This is my son whom I love, listen to
him. " God wanted to make it clear. They'd just seen Moses representing the law,
Elijah representing the prophets.

God appears and says, "Listen to him. " Listen to Jesus. In fact, just to make
that extremely clear, suddenly when they looked around in verse 8, there was no
longer anyone there except Jesus.

No one left, no one standing except Jesus. Listen to him. Don't miss what he has
to say.

God wants us to learn from all of his word, from the law in the Old Testament,
the prophets in the Old Testament, from all of his word, but he wants us to
focus in on who Jesus is. And if what I'm learning about who God is and what he
wants to do in my life is separated from who Jesus is, I'm going to miss it. I'm
going to miss it.

And God wants to say to us here clearly, don't miss it. Let's take just a minute
to talk to him. Lord, I don't want to miss it.

I don't want to miss the truth of who you are and what you want to do in my life
today. And so I pray that today I would listen to you. There's a lot of voices I
could listen to.

There's a lot of spiritual voices I could listen to, a lot of people who want to
give me their opinion. There's a lot of internal voices I could listen to. I
want to put those aside and listen to you.

Hear the kind of faith that you want to give me, hear the kind of life that you
want to give me. And Jesus, I pray you help me to listen to you as my teacher
and to follow you and trust because I know how deeply you love me. And I pray
this, Jesus, in your name, amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to we're going to look together at Jesus's answer
to the main question that I hear about the book of Mark.